Unseelie Tea
by Rose Midnight Moonlight Black
Summary: The Kings of the Light and Dark Courts discuss affairs and schemes over tea, and with the world as a chess board and their courts are pawns, life will always be fascinating - AU, Fae


_Disclaimer: I OWN NOTHING, But the twistedness that follows._

_For Campionsayn, who I have much neglected over the last few months to my guilt. I've be struck by a recluctance to write alongside too much overtime at work - and re writing this several times over and still not entirely happy, I'm glade I didn't completely scrap it after the first few redrafts. It's sort of what she wanted, It has that Bats (sort of) and the Jokers (sort of) and even Superman (Sort of) - Clearly, I don't do AU worlds as good as she does. XD Better late than never?_

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><p><em>The Seelie court is all that is good, honesty and true in the world – the warm summer's sun caresing the back. So the Unseelie court is all that is evil, dishonesty and deceitful in the nature – a bitter slap to the face from a winter wind. <em>They are separate but whole, never mixed but never divided.<em>_

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><p><em><strong>Unseelie Tea<strong>_

The King of the Unseelie Court, the Ruler of Winter, the Master of Darkness and Shadows, Lord of Deceit and Deception... was unimpressed. But then, from the King of the Seelie Court, he expected no less a waste of time.

"Tame them, Darivard, or dispose of them," the Lord of all things good, kind and generally sickening, growled as he tapped the table with a blunt finger. His spring blue eyes where fixed on his darker counterpart.

"Really, Trillian? I'd never have guessed you had it in you to be cruel, what with all the forgiveness and such nonsense like that." Darivard offered offhand, sipping from his wine glass. He wasn't enjoying this meeting overly so – after all it was midday, the day of the All Halloween – the day of the shift. Already he could feel his power shifting and tugging at him, waxing like a growing tide, sending his odd bursts of energy and exhaustion that was wreaking havoc on his mortal self's body. He could see in the trembling lip, mood swings and the bags under his – hmmm friend was perhaps not the best word – _peer_'s eyes that told him that the Seelie King was not taking the wanes of his natural powers without difficulties. The downside to being mortally reborn was the whole 'I-cant-remember-who-I-truly-am-as-a-mortal' and the lack of understanding therefore of the side effects of taking on his immortal form.

Not that his mortal form wasn't that impressive, Darivard had to admit he was felt he made one hell of a human!

The Seelie king did an impressive sneer, for a Seelie _pixie_, "Those _things_ don't deserve forgiveness, Darivard, I'd have thought you of all beings would wish them eternal suffering. After what they did to your sons –"  
>"- no, what they did to my <em>mortal<em>'s sons. My Princes are perfectly fine, as if a bout of torture would faze them." Darivard bared his teeth annalistically, showing them to be as sharp and lethal as any 'Vampires' (the nightmare's whom he drew his creation from after all). Trillian didn't react, simple crossing his arms that ever so insistence 'you know I'm right'.  
>"... never the less, they have been dealt with," his non-quite colourless eyes flashed over the rim of his wine glass, "<em>all<em> have been punished."

Sighing, the Lord of Light and Colours sat down in a heavy oak seat, feeling the tiredness of his mortal – if he could truly be called mortal – self slip through his weakening powers. "You think torture will solve this dilemma? They are powerful and mad and dare I say more demented that you," Darivard didn't look offended, "pardon the self interest but I have no desire to see them sit on your throne as my opposite. I cannot allow it."

Darivard laughed. Only it was more of a short cackle - the agonised howl of an animal trapped in their own demised and the mockery that that misfortune. "That will not happen. I'd never allow that to happen – you think me weak? That I'd ever so foolishly risk my throne, my _power _in a game of cat and mouse? I'm insane but _he_ is mad – he's genius, brilliant," the grey eyes narrowed like thunderstorms reaching its crescendo, "but he lacks what drive and sanity is required to dislodge me." The dark monarch shrugged, "Sooner a son murders me than a court _Clown."_

Trillian shifted, slightly unnerved by the stark grin and morbid amusement in a normally unamused man. "Darivard, think straight! Don't allow the ecstasy of the Equinox to cloud your senses." The last thing the Lord of Summer need on Halloween was for the King of Winter to lose to the enthralling power of the changing seasons.

"I am not. The Clown is no threat to me. I'd sooner lost my crown to a son – or a daughter mark me – that to him. His mortal skin would soon shed a tear for _mine_ if he did vanquish me." The King gazed dispassionately into his bloody glass, "He obsesses so tenderly after him. Of course, assuming he has a mortal form." He added thoughtfully. With that bloodthirsty Clown, the King was certain of nothing. He found it to be refreshing.

Trillian narrowed his own eyes, running a gloved hand over his rapidly paling tanned skin, "What? Of course he's has mortal skin or he'd not walk the physical world for so long."

The Dark King shrugged, "I had thought, considered if it was possible that he did not – Aye, I know he rarely depart from his favourite play field to meet us here but there is no change between them. Who could claim there are difference between the Joker and the Clown? Kal." He toyed with the glass.

Kal sat back, slumping as he fixed his eyes on the white man in front of him, "No. He can't." Then he hesitated, "... is he damaged? I know broken mortal forms manifest themselves so potently – look at you and me, but... really?" It was hard to think of the Clown as whole enough to _be_ broken.

"Possible. Possible not. It matters little."

The Summer King huffed dissatisfied at his friend uncaring remark. "How are your ... Squires, does he call them?"

"He does not such thing," Darivard snapped, as if insulted by the terms, "He has no name for them, my Princes." The affection was buried, deep between pride and expectation but, pricked as his ears were, the Summer King could hear it. He wondered if the 'Princes' could too.

"Ah, yes. How fares the little one? I heard he has earned his first form," if there was something both the Seelie and Unseelie courts both took pride in was seeing a young Changeling take their first form. As of yet, aside from the few Changelings he had took into his palace, Trillian had not sired a child directly of his own essence, though he hoped to have one with his loving Lady – if not his Queen. Darivard, who for his icy disparity and obsessive perfectionism, had taken many Changelings into his nests and sired a few of his own too – four sired Changelings currently to contend with his other Changeling Princes.

A black warmth sprang into those stormy eyes with quickness – yes, Trillian had heard that Darivard was particular taken with the latest of his brood. This, apparently, was why the Clown had insisted on one of his own changlings killing the Changeling Prince before he could take a proper form.

Surprisingly, battle that then ensured between the two formless Changelings who, without any true name or purpose or shape, had wrecked a surprising amount of damage. And since all Fae were drawn from names, dreams, emotions – the more potent the better – and where reborn to the mortal world through those human powers, to be without was wrenchingly powerless. And – while it may be years if not decades (but perhaps not centuries given the strength of these two) before they could be reborn to a mortal form, the damage had shaken the mortal realms too.

And the little Changeling Prince has escaped, if not the victor, then alive and well for all intentions and purposes.

"Yes, he's very well." The proud King brushed off his shelves, trying to not look _too_ gloating at his son's survival, "his form is not so well defined, but he is young yet. He ... takes much after me and both his eldest brothers."

Trillian frowned, "Ah – Romani and Red Jai? Or Romani and Devilan?" The two oldest of the Changelings...or the first Changeling and the first _sired_ Changeling. The Summer King wondered if it really mattered at all, given how bloody thirsty both Red Jai and Devilan were.

"Romani and Devilan," The Dark King confirmed, "his body is completely black, like a living shadow, with a red mark across his chest, spiked gauntlets and a Bat's ears." Trillian tried to not scrunch his face up in unnerved disgust – he knew to the Unseelie court the grotesqueness would be beautiful, even if the young Prince keep his pretty 'mortal' face – but to Trillian it was a revolting as Darivard's inner nightmare form, which words had long since failed to define and eyes refused to see.

"Hmm, how pleasant. His training?" Trillian took a sip of his tea, which low and behold was still as hot as when he had poured it however long ago.

Darivard smiled, fangless but still chilling, "Already commenced if that's what you mean. I don't see why Seelies flutter around for so long, Changelings need to be train eventually – why wait till they are already steeped in bad habits?"

"It's this silly notion we have of a thing – please try not to laugh – called changelinghood." Trillian muttered sarcastically, "where they can act and do as they please while they take form and discover themselves, instead of being force to act on Fae natures before they truly know what their natures _are_."

Darivard hummed as if Trillain's words brought him a notion that was amusing but never less irrelevant – and maybe to the darkness, innocence was irrelevant. The Kings both sipped at their drinks, their differences slipping off them like day and night, undistinguished but separate.

"He takes well to his training." The Shadow continued, "He has perhaps not his brothers' dedication to study but he makes up for that in natural instinct." The murdered remains of what might have once been an affection smile flickered over Darivard face. If Trillian leant backward, the faintest smell of blood reaching his nose – almost too faint to be real – Darivard didn't care enough to correct it.

"He's excelling." The smiled turn to a grin that was far to murderous to be appropriate.

Trillian raised an eyebrow but otherwise his rather majestic face didn't betray his scepticism. Exceeding? Trillian had known no one to reach Darivard's twisted idea of perfection and perhaps no being was ever _meant _to, though not that ever spoiled the slaughter for the Changelings'.

_Sooner a son murders me._

Trillian smirked, the tiniest of shadows floating over his eyes. A son indeed, it appeared. "And the girl?"

The shadows stirred even as Darivard's face stayed blank. "What of her?"

"I heard she was split, you don't find that fascinating?" The Seelie Fae prompted, raising an eyebrow.

Darivard didn't reply. Clear, to Trillian, Darivard _did_ find it fascinating and, had it been _any_ other Fae, would have tied the Changeling down in his labs already – but of course it wasn't any other Changeling. The King could hardly be seen to be taking an interest in the Changeling that, for all technicalities, had _beaten_ one of his Princes even if albeit she was left scarcely alive for it all. But Trillian had long ago release any notion that he had to treat his Peer with the same dignity and kindness he did his own court and so took as much twisted pleasure as he dared in express his interest. And watched as Darivard face grew darker and colder with every wonder.

" – and perhaps, when she's fully formed, she'll be a _challenge_ to your darling Princes all on her own." The Summer King smiled barbed-like, his words like new thorns in his opposite's side.

"Never." The Shadow hissed, insulted and furious. Whether his angry was other the Clown's Changeling or The Sun's defiance to mock him, wasn't clear – only that the room was as slick as ice, and the Seelie Fae's skin has fade to a sickly pallor as the night continues to wax and wane.

"Settle Brother." The Summer Lord smiled, "I'm only jesting. The Changeling would need lots of natural potential to challenge your Princes, and she'd still fail for it. But I don't see why you don't take her as your own? Surely to take such promise from him would be vengeance enough." Darivard had never hesitated from _taking_ everything he desired and covert – be it a charming Fae Lady or a talented Changeling, with persuasion, trickery or blatant violence – he couldn't understand why the King sulked around this talented, albeit twisted Changeling. It wasn't as if he fear his youngest being showed a fool or weak with her around – the Changeling had escaped her and her sire alive and was skilled in survival enough.

Though Trillian knew he'd never understand the workings of a father's mind (as Darivard so enjoy pointing out) and _never_ a father like Darivard himself.

"She is broken." The scowl was almost a pout of disappointment, "as you say, she's split. She cannot keep form, she is growing into two. Soon she will not be _One_ but _Two who are One._ How weak, to spend her life dependant on something someone else can steal or corrupt." The King seemed to pause, as if considering a secret. Which was rare. At least between them, being polar opposites meant they were unable to play power Games with each other or each other's Courts and so made _secrets_ redundant. They had long ago, in the alliance, declared to never interference in each other's Game; not out of concern (Trillian) or playful boredom (Darivard). So they found some ironic confidante instead of a rival.

"She is... polarising." He admitted "She is Unseelie for sure, but the smaller, splintered side of her will never truly be Unseelie. It is not in nature to split _Bad_ into two _Bads_, but into something that is _evil _and something less so. The small will steal her reason, I think." The King struggled, "she will be some mad dog without it, and madness is such a fruitless waste."

Darivard took a sip of his red glass, which had never emptied, and held an air of someone who delivered tragic if expected news. Trillian stared, surprised and all the more fascinated. Then the Seelie Fae, King of anything that could claim goodness, smiled conspirator to his friend and in shimmer of fading sunlight disappeared from the Immortal plane. He was satisfied, for now with his Peer's schemes and Kal-El would accept that.

Placing the glass gently onto the table, ignoring the way it melted into the table Darivard dusted his suit off. Dark sparked at his busts, and shedding his mortal form, Bruce Wayne followed his friend into the Mortal world that was their personal battle fields.

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><p>Da End<p> 


End file.
